The tranquillity of a cruise along the Nile is shattered by the discovery that Linnet Ridgeway has been shot through the head. She was young, stylish and beautiful, a girl who had everything – until she lost her life. Hercule Poirot recalls an earlier outburst by a fellow passenger: ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger.’ Yet in this exotic setting, nothing is ever quite what it seems…

I never re-read a book. The reason is simply – there are too many other books to read and there’s not enough time to read them all. But when I fell into a reading slump mid- June, no new book could grab my attention. Not wanting to waste in time not reading a novel, I turned to one of my favourite novels by Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile. I started re-reading the book and in no time I was cured off my reading slump.

With an Agatha Christie novel, I simply don’t own how to write a review. I’m always at a loss of words when I comes to her novels. I guess because she is my favourite author, my brain just can’t think anything else other than that she is the best at what she does. As any Christie novel, this book too is a must read, no questions asked.

But there’s this one thing I learnt while reading this book. I had noticed it earlier in other Christie novels too but never actually thought about it much until now. What I learnt was the novels by Agatha Christie aren’t just about the crime and its solving. It’s more about the people involved and their psychology. Without using any extraordinary language, Agatha Christie is able to take me inside a character’s heart and mind. And since the heart and mind are always in conflict, so are the characters with themselves and others. And this introspection is done in two ways – through narration and through our detective Hercule Poirot. This quality makes Hercule Poirot more real, considerate, thoughtful and respectful. And that is why Hercule Poirot is my dear best friend since 2007. I will never grow old of meeting him again and again.